Fighting Frankenfood

The epitome of corporate arrogance is not refusing to pay taxes, not breaking the law with impunity, not purchasing state and national legislatures wholesale. It's suing state governments for trying to protect their citizens' health.

Liz Colville at Wonkette:

Monsanto, that sickening institution behind Agent Orange and strawberries made out of fish and sugar made out of Axe Body Spray,* has claimed and will probably claim until the end of time that you don’t really need to know that your “all-natural” cereal is actually created in a lab. DON’T YOU LIKE IT? Don’t you feel yourself turning into a Transformer? But the state of Vermont is particularly not thrilled about Monsanto’s coquettish behavior, and is trying to pass H. 722, which would require food labels to tell you whether a product is genetically modified, and would prevent that “all-natural” designation from appearing on the packaging of a GMO food, BECAUSE IT ISN’T. The corporation has so much disgusting dirty cash on hand, however, that it has decided to intimidate the people of Vermont — not a timid bunch, mind you — out of proceeding with the bill. The sad thing? It looks like it’s working. Fish strawberries WILL RISE AGAIN.

Alternet writes that Vermont lawmakers are actually “dragging their feet” over the bill because Monsanto is proving, once again, to be a bunch of bullies with enough money to put multiple entire law firms on its cases. One theory is that Vermont will have to “go it alone” in court if it passes the bill, because it will make the state the first in the nation with such a law. Instead of seeing this as HEROIC, certain lawmakers appear to be having second thoughts and are holding public hearings over the bill in what appears to be an effort to stall all the way until the end of the current legislative session in May. In other words, some Monsanto employee has handed over stacks of cash to some influential Vermonters, and it appears to be hushing them up nicely?

Perhaps if California passes its similar Right to Know Act, which is currently in the process of gathering signatures for the November ballot, Vermont would have the courage to be second in the nation? But the website of the bill, Vermont Right to Know GMOs, points out:

50 countries including the European Union, Japan and China already label genetically engineered foods. Vermont should be the leader on this important issue here in the United States.

Also, do not wait for California to do things! You may be waiting a long time, e.g. until the Second Coming of the Dinosaurs!

Because of our peerless legal system, if the bill goes forward, Monsanto will likely succeed in suing the entire state of Vermont and thus exercising its Right to Not Tell, just like it did with the rBGH milk fiasco, in which Monsanto’s lawyers were enticed by wads into arguing that milk producers should not have to declare whether their products contained that particular bovine growth hormone or not (AND WON).

Now, to what degree does this matter? Let this pretty chart from the USDA itself explain:

delicious

[Alternet]

*unverified

Have you started your vegetable garden yet? There's no excuse not to; even in the most urban apartment you can have a tomato plant in a container on your balcony.

Vermont Wins Single-Payer Debate; When Will Obama Concede?

Yep, it's done, and for once, working people and government in the public interest won.

Down With Tyranny:

Yesterday Gov. Peter Shumlin of Vermont signed a single-payer health care bill into law, the first of its kind in the U.S.

Legislators say the plan, approved by the Democratic controlled House and Senate this spring, aims to extend coverage to all 620,000 residents while containing soaring health care costs.

A key component establishes a state health benefits exchange, as mandated by new federal health care laws, that will offer coverage from private insurers, state-sponsored and multi-state plans. It also will include tax credits to make premiums affordable for uninsured Vermonters.

The exchange, called Green Mountain Care and managed by a five-member board, will set reimbursement rates for health care providers and streamline administration into a single, unified system.

Residents and small employers will be able to compare rates from the various plans and enroll for coverage of their choosing.

As designed, the goal is an eventual state-funded and operated single-payer system. ... Advocates of change say the existing fee-for-service care has a financial incentive to deliver more care, such as tests, with little attention to quality or better outcomes.

The single-payer concept was omitted from the federal health care overhaul championed by President Barack Obama, in part due to Republican criticism it meant excessive government control.

Progressives in Vermont, including Shumlin and U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent, have worked for years to modify the state's health care system.

...If the state secures one key federal waiver related to exchanges, Green Mountain Care could begin as early as 2014. Another waiver needed to implement the single-payer component under federal law would not be available until 2017.

Vermont's plan calls for the board to consider the likely costs of coverage, factor in potential savings from reforms and recommended sources of revenue. It is charged with delivering a financing plan to legislators by 2013.

If that plan's single-payer component is adopted, lawmakers would approve a budget annually.

Single-payer proponents say the present system is too expensive and excludes too many residents. Vermont has around 47,000 uninsured and 150,000 underinsured residents.

Meanwhile, President Obama and the Congressional Democrats who insisted on health care "reform" that handed trillions of taxpayer dollars to Big Insurance and Big Pharma, are about to get rolled by repugs demanding that dems cut Medicare, and cut their own 2012 electoral throats in the bargain.

Digby:

Ezra Klein systematically dismantles Paul Ryan's phony arguments in defense of his health care plan. It's an excellent post and one that shows just how dishonest the Republicans are. (There's no point in excerpting it, just read it.)

I only wish that Ezra had been as clear on Hardball today when Michael Smerconish was going on and on about the need to cut Medicare and Ezra replied that because Mitch McConnell is insisting on cuts in order to raise the debt ceiling, it will be done. That's probably technically true. But the fact is that the debt ceiling will be raised whether Mitch McConnell holds his breath and turns blue or not. He knows which side his campaign contributions are buttered on and so does everyone else. Medicare will only be cut because the Democrats allow it.

It's hard for me imagine that any good policy can come of this nonsense, but I'll leave it to the wonks to sort it our later. But on the politics it's very foolish. Right now you have a nice clean contrast and muddying it destroys the Dem advantage. But Ezra seems to be in the know so I guess at this point the only question seems to be how it will be cut. If that's the case, anyone want to bet on the return of the Obama Death Panel boogeyman in 2012?

If you wondered how the dems were going to snatch impossible defeat from certain victory in 2012, that's how.

Vermont Gets Single-Payer Healthcare

It's hard to put the importance of this into words, so I'll just let Down With Tyranny do it:

Today we have some much more pleasant weekend fare, almost, compared to the way the rest of the country is going, a fairy tale, in fact. But for Vermonters, it's real. I guess it pays living in a state with an educated and aware citizenry willing to elect officials like Howard Dean, Bernie Sanders, Peter Shumlin, Patrick Leahy and Peter Welch, instead of, say, Mississippi, which is working overtime to limit the access of its citizens-- other than its wealthy ones-- to healthcare. Mississippi Republicans are eager to have drug prices regulated by... well, pharmacists who give big enough political contributions to Republicans to get put on a board. Anyway, Vermont is different from Mississippi:

Every Vermonter could sign up for state-financed health insurance under a bill passed by the House on Thursday that would put the state on a path to a single-payer health care system by the middle of this decade.

"This bill takes our state one step closer to a system that ensures that all Vermonters have access to the care they deserve and contains costs," House Speaker Shap Smith said shortly after the House passed the bill 92-49.

The measure now goes to the Senate, where it is expected to pass, but with some possible changes.

Gov. Peter Shumlin, who made single-payer health care a centerpiece of his gubernatorial campaign last year, also praised the legislation. He said it would make Vermont "the first state in the country to make the first substantive step to deliver a health care system where health care will be a right and not a privilege, where health care will follow the individual, not be a requirement of the employer, and where we'll have an affordable system that contains costs."

Costs are an open question. The bill sets up a five-member state board to design a benefit package to be called Green Mountain Care, but doesn't require the governor to propose a way to pay for it until 2013. That drew fire from minority Republicans in the House, who said the hard part of reform-- paying for it-- won't be tackled until after Shumlin campaigns for a second two-year term in 2012. They also said the bill would create too much uncertainty for businesses in the state.

The bill is expected to pass the Senate and be signed into law, despite GOP hysteria by delusional sociopaths like Rep. Thomas Burditt of West Rutland who started braying about Lenin on the House floor, quoting him as saying "medicine is the keystone in the arch of socialism" and conflating that with Vermont's popular healthcare reform initiative. "I believe," droned Burditt, "those who are promoting 'universal coverage' via government-run and government-controlled medicine know this. What they hope is that the public won't find out the truth. There is nothing compassionate about socialism."

Remember, single-payer healthcare works exactly like federal government Medicare: you get your healthcare from the private-sector doctor of your choice, and the federal government, as the insurer "Medicare," pays the doctor/pharmacist/hospital.

Single-payer is nothing more or less than Medicare for all. In the case of Vermont, the government entity acting as the insurer is the state government of Vermont, rather than the federal government, but it works the same way.

Vermont has the opportunity to set up a single-payer system thanks to federal healthcare reform, the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), which allows any state to set up its own healthcare system, as long as it covers everyone affordably.

Vermont is the first state to do so, and since it chose single-payer - as opposed to the die-faster system repugs want to install - it's like to be successful.